Hell's Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga

I recently finished reading Hell's Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga (1967) by Hunter S. Thompson, the author of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

Hell's Angles was his first book, and it came to be as a follow up to an article he wrote for The Nation called 'The Motorcycle Gangs: Losers and Outsiders.' The article became very popular and several publishers suggested he write a book about them.

Thompson was introduced to the Oakland chapter of the Angels by a former Angel and fellow reporter, Birney Jarvis. Thompson became close to the Oakland chapter president Ralph 'Sonny' Barger and through him got to know a group of Angels quite well. Some of them stayed a while in his apartment, he went to their parties and drank at their bars. In all, he spent about a year in their company, interviewing them, hanging out and learning how they lived, why they did what they did, but also what they didn't do.

After a party that went out of hand in 1965, the then California D.A. published a report on the Angels that was picked up by Time Magazine, Newsweek and the New York Times. They however grabbed the most frightening and lurid parts of the report and declined to publish the part that said 'All charges dropped'. This gave the Hell's Angels a sudden level of fame they weren't ready for. The police targeted them on sight but tons of people want to party with them as well.

Sonny once told Thompson “You can't say a lot of good about us, so why the need to tell lies?” or something close to that. They couldn't understand why society would make up stuff about them and eventually accepted Thompson. He never joined them, and didn't wear their colors, which would have been (and still is) a big no no.

In the end, Thompson said the wrong thing to the wrong Angel and got stomped. On of his “friends” Tiny, dragged him outside and helped him into his car, and Thompson never went back.

The book is interesting from beginning to end. It can be weirdly funny but at times it is a hard read. Thompson doesn't sugar coat anything, he reports on the violence, the abuse, the drugs, riots and everything else. I never got the feeling that he invented anything in the book. What you read happened.

Besides the Hell's Angels the book is an interesting look at the mid 60's. The era of the Kennedy assassinations. The ramp up of the Vietnam War. The rise of flower power and LSD. The Rise of the Black Panthers. A conservative society suddenly confronted with radically different ideals, and in the middle, The Hell's Angels, loud smelly rebels that didn't give a damn, riding their massive bikes, willing to spit in the eye of whoever crossed their path. Or help them out, depending on how they felt that day.

I don't think you can read Hell's Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga and not feel anything. It doesn't necessarily teach you anything, too much time has passed for that, but it is compelling throughout. If you've ever been curious about the Angles, or California in the 60's, then this is the book for you.

That's that and all that. Join me again next time and until then, have a great week!

 

The Club Dumas

I just finished reading:

The Club Dumas by Arturo Pérez-Reverte published in 1993. (Beware of spoilers in the link).

I chose this novel because it is the basis for The Ninth Gate (1999) by Roman Polanski and starring Johnny Depp, Lena Olin, Frank Langella and Emmanuelle Seigner.

The Ninth Gate has always been one of those movies that stuck with me, and I was pretty happy to sit down and finally read its origin. Like almost all novels with a movie based on it, the two are pretty different.

First off, the book has two main plot lines, instead of only one; an unknown, hand written chapter from The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas, and a separate plot with a book called Of the Nine Doors of the Kingdom of Shadows.

Our main protagonist Lucas Corso, or Dean Corso in the movie (Depp), a book mercenary in the world of rare antique books, is hired to authenticate the Dumas chapter while also checking up on the Nine Doors. This book, written by Aristide Torchia in 1666 was reputed to be able to summon the Devil. The church burned him and his book in 1667, although three copies survived. Corso's job is to figure out which copy is real and which are expensive forgeries.

A sinister figure stalks Corso as he travels around Spain, Portugal and France, attacking him and trying to steal his bag of books. He is aided by a mysterious young woman, who shows up when she wants to and even helps him fight off the mysterious attacker.

The two plot lines are intimately entwined, up until the end, where as is normal, we get our resolutions. There were times where I was a bit lost trying to make sense of what was going on, and this is not by accident. The Club Dumas is very well written, and nothing is left to chance, but I appreciate the two plot lines being resolving separately. This really helps keep things in perspective, and provides much needed clarity.

Now in the movie, the Three Musketeers plot is removed completely. Certain elements from that plot line are folded into the Nine Doors plot instead, in order to make the full narrative make sense. I think it was a smart move to remove the Dumas part as it is nice but takes a lot of space in pure explanations, something the movie couldn't have handled. If someone wanted to make a TV show based on the novel, the Dumas plot should absolutely be included.

The movie follows the Nine Doors plot pretty faithfully, going to far as to use the engravings created for the novel with only two minor changes to fit into the movie. As movie adaptations go, it is pretty good.

So, do I recommend this book? Yes, I think so. I'm a bit biased as I really like the movie, but I do think the book is well worth reading. It is charming if at times a bit goofy. I don't feel cheated by the end at all, but I would understand if someone else felt that way. Overall I found it interesting and a pretty nice read. I learned a great deal about Alexandre Dumas as a bonus.

That's that and all that. Join me again next time and until then, have a great week!

Listen carefully.

Being a life long fan of Warhammer 40.000, I was interested to learn about a story called:

The Watcher in the Rain.

But I hit a snag. The Watcher in the Rain is an audiodrama only, it doesn't exist in written form. I became determined to listen to it so I went hunting.

You can get it from Games Workshop directly, but paying over €10 for a 75 minute drama felt a bit steep. It's not like an album that you can listen to several times a day if you want to, an audiodrama is a book, you might want to revisit it from time to time, but not as often as music.

Then I found it on Audible (not a sponsor), Amazon's audio book platform, and to my delight you can sign up for £0.99 and you get a credit with which I got The Watcher in the Rain. 

I had heard a couple of audiodramas 15+ years ago, dramatizations of a couple of Lovecraft stories,which were excellent.

The main differences between an audiodrama and an audiobook are sounds effects and multiple voices. An audiobook is normally read by one person, but an audiodrama has different people for all characters and the aforementioned sound effects. This creates a wonderful atmosphere that enhances the experience beyond mere narration.

So, I sat down, put on my headphones and enjoyed The Watcher in the Rain. I'm not going to go into detail about the story as such, it deserves to be experienced as it is, I'll only say that it was excellent both in writing and performances. If you like Warhammer 40.000 I highly recommend it. 

This experience has also rekindled my interest in audiodramas in general, and I'm going to go hunting for more. They were all the rage back before TV became a thing as something people could enjoy at home on the radio instead of going to the cinema, and they work well when playing a game that doesn't require too much audio, like World of Warcraft.

 

That's that and all that. Join me again nest time, and until then, have a great week!  

The Odessa File

Over Christmas, I read:

The Odessa File (1972),

by Frederick Forsyth, the same author who wrote The Day of the Jackal. In The Odessa File, our hero is Peter Miller, a young German freelance reporter. He mainly works for picture magazines, and earns a good living doing so. He even drives a black Jaguar, which is his pride and joy.

One night, on a whim he follows an ambulance looking for a story. In the process he gets his hands on a journal written by a Jewish man who was in the Riga ghetto during WWII. The journal chronicles everything the man saw, including all the atrocities. Central to the journal is SS captain Eduard Roschmann, the commander of the ghetto, and when Miller finds out Roschmann is apparently both alive and free as a bird he sets out to take him down.

The Odessa File is written with Forsyth's usual smooth free flowing style. It never gets bogged down, even when laying down lots of information at once. A lesser author would have been info-dumping, but Forsyth is more than skilled enough to keep it going while never stumbling.

The subject matter is actually based on real facts. There was a real Odessa, which stands for Organisation der ehemaligen SS-Angehörigen, meaning: Organization of Former SS Members. Likewise, several SS officers like Roschmann, Glücks, and a man known only as Werwolf but is likely supposed to have been Hans-Adolf Prützmann were real people. Forsyth details how these men got out of Europe and down to Argentina, and these escape methods were actually used, so despite being a fictional novel, you can learn a thing or two from reading The Odessa File.

From beginning to end, The Odessa File was a real good read. The pacing is excellent, with no boring parts, and there was only one part that annoyed me. Mild Spoiler: At one point, Miller gets help in order to infiltrate Odessa, which takes some time, and then he promptly ruins it by insisting on driving his Jaguar, meaning that whole part was sort of a waste of time. Forsyth does weave it all together so that the story doesn't suffer in the least, but it bothered me that it happened at all.

The Odessa File was made into a movie in 1974 starring Jon Voight as Miller, but I haven't had time to watch it. I do know that the novel and the movie together made enough of a stir, that the real Roschmann was suddenly found dead in Argentina. It is speculated that Odessa killed him to quiet things down, but this is unverified.

So, do I recommend The Odessa File? If you haven't figured it out yet, then yes, absolutely. I hate the term 'unputdownable' but The Odessa File was close to that. If The Day of the Jackal gave me the impression that Frederick Forsyth was a master author, The Odessa File absolutely confirmed it.

That's that and all that. Join me again next time and until then, have a great week and a Happy New Year!

 

Argo

I just read:

Argo: How the CIA and Hollywood pulled off the most audacious rescue in history (2012).

This book is written by Anthony Mendez and Matt Baglio and is a true account of the events.

Some backstory: in 1979, Iranian militants stormed the US embassy in Tehran and took the staff hostage, demanding the return of the Shah who had fled to the US after being ousted from power. In the chaos, the militants forgot about the US consulate, and six individuals managed to escape. Desperate, they took refuge with the British, until they too were in hot water, but luckily the six managed to find refuge with the Canadians.

Anthony 'Tony' Mendez, was in charge of the Office of Technical Services in the CIA, and was tasked with getting the six, called the House Guests, out of Iran safely. Together with an old friend from Hollywood who did prosthetics and masks for both Mission Impossible and The Planet of the Apes, Tony comes up with and executes a magnificent operation to rescue the House Guests.

This book, being co-written by Tony himself is a joy to read. The language flows well and you never get bogged down in unnecessary details, all without sacrificing depth or detail. You get an interesting glimpse into parts of the CIA in the 70's, as well as parts of Hollywood and the world in general.

Now, I'm not naive enough to blindly believe everything a veteran officer of the CIA says, just because he says it. That out of the way, I don't think too much was left out or changed. The case became big news in time, and Tony was even interviewed by Walter Cronkite some years later. It is a fact that Tony, for some reason changed the name of his Hollywood friend. Why, I don't know. After all, his effects credits are common knowledge.

So, do I recommend this book? Yes, absolutely. Not only is it well written and the content interesting, but with world events being what they are, it gives some background into why some things are the way they are. I generally dislike terms like page-turner, but in the case of Argo, it is true. I stayed awake too long, too many nights because the book was too hard to put down.

That's that and all that. Join me again next time, and until then, have a great week!

 

John le Carré

Lately, I've been reading a lot of John le Carré, the former intelligence officer and author of spy novels.

I read his first novel, Call for the Dead (1961).

This is the first time we meet George Smiley, the veteran case officer, who together with Special Branch inspector Mendel solve the apparent suicide of a Foreign Office diplomat.

Call for the Dead is crude by le Carré's standard, and the book feels more like Agatha Christie if she had written cold war spy novels. I don't mean this in an overly negative way, don't get me wrong. It's just that having read some of his other books, I know he can be smoother. Call for the Dead is well worth reading.

Next we have The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1963). This is his third novel and it is a masterpiece. We meet Alec Leamas, the former station chief for West Berlin who goes on the hardest mission he's ever known. I don't want to talk more about the plot for fear of spoilers. From beginning to end, it is tense, sharp and kept me on edge until the brilliant finale. If you only want to read one cold war spy thriller in your life, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold is a good choice.

Last night I finished The Honourable Schoolboy (1977). This is the second book in the Karla trilogy that starts with Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (1974) and ends with Smiley's People (1979). The first and third books were made into TV series starring Alec Guinness as George Smiley, but the second book, The Honourable Schoolboy wasn't, and for purely economic reasons. Most of the book takes place all over south east Asia, like Cambodia, Vietnam, Hong Kong and Laos. Much of the plot follows Jerry Westerby, a sports journalist and spy, as he chases down a mystery for Smiley. The rest deals with the tensions between Smiley's Circus (MI6), Whitehall and the CIA.

The Honourable Schoolboy is brilliantly written which is lucky because it clocks in at over 600 pages. I do think it's bloated and could have been pared down for a sleeker story. A lot of time is spent on background color, which le Carré does masterfully, but isn't really needed for the main plot. Overall, I liked The Honourable Schoolboy, and I'm glad I read it, just be aware that despite how well written it is, the last 200 pages or so were a slog to get through. It is also the weakest ending I have read from le Carré.

Overall John le Carré was a fantastic writer. He rarely does melodrama, in fact a lot of what happens is understated in a very British way. His first hand experience of intelligence work and espionage allowed him to craft stories that are absolutely believable. This isn't the over the top style of Ian Fleming, you won't meet James Bond anywhere. It's slow, methodical and even inevitable, and when action does happen it hits harder for its general absence. If you want proper cold war espionage, John le Carré is your man.

That's that and all that. Join me again next time, and until then, have a great week!

 

The Day of the Jackal (novel)

Four years ago, I watched and wrote about The Day of the Jackal (1973), this week I finished the novel the movie is based on. I even re-watched the movie for good measure.

Written by Frederick Forsyth and published in 1971, this political thriller starts with factual events, namely the assassination attempts by the OAS against French President Charles de Gaulle. The OAS was a real group of ex colonial military personnel, who wanted to kill de Gaulle for giving Algeria its independence. They saw it as high treason after bleeding and dying for the colonies. So far so good.

Enter the rest of the book which is fictional. Realizing that their organization is riddled by informants and spies, and that any plans were leaked to French Intelligence as soon as they were formed, the leaders of the OAS hires a professional assassin, The Jackal. Being completely outside the entire OAS organization, the informers, and therefore the security mob were helpless to stop the assassin.

Enter police commissaire Lebel. This small but brilliant man is given almost limitless power to find and stop the Jackal, a job made harder by the fact that de Gaulle refuses to be careful. Being an old warhorse, he sees it as cowardice and weakness to increase security and cancel events just because someone might want to kill you.

The book is split into essentially two parts, the Jackal and his methods, and the police in France and the UK. We follow both investigations and the Jackal's preparations in excruciating detail. This is where the genius of Forsyth comes to play. A lesser author would have written a boring book that lumbers from scene to scene until you throw it away in disgust. Not Forsyth! The Day of the Jackal is never boring. We follow the Jackal as he steals passports, buys hair dye, flies to Copenhagen to buy Danish clothes for a disguise and it is all fascinating. I don't know how he did it, but he pulled it off.

I'm not going to spoil it for you, but I want to compare book and movie a bit.

Since I re-watched the movie in the middle of reading the book, I was in a good position to really compare the two, and they are super close. The things the movie leaves out are mostly superfluous details. In the book, the Jackal steals several passports for his disguises, but in the movie we see him steal only one. In the book the French security people have a meeting every evening, in the movie we see only a few. In essence, the movie leaves out nothing of value, and it is still almost two and a half hours long. It however leaves most scenes completely unchanged. Another good example is when the Jackal buys some false papers from a forger. In the book they meet in a bar and take a taxi to the forgers workshop, while in the movie they just meet up in the workshop, small things like that.

If you've seen the movie or intend to, but you are unsure if you should read the book first, there is no need. Unlike to many other film adaptations, The Day of the Jackal is extremely faithful to the source. The book is absolutely worth reading though, don't get me wrong. I absolutely recommend both, but you won't miss anything of value from just watching the movie.

That's that and all that. Join me again next time, and until then, have a great week!

 

Assassinorum: Kingmaker

I recently finished reading:

Assassinorum: Kingmaker,

and I want to talk about it.

This standalone novel set in the Warhammer 40.000 (40k) universe is written by Robert Rath, and is set in the most recent timeline in 40k.

Three assassins are sent to a Knight world, a planet ruled by two noble houses, where the nobles pilot huge bipedal war machines, called Knights. Their job is to kill the current High Monarch before he secedes from the Imperium of Man, while causing as little damage as possible and steering the election of a new High Monarch in a way favorable to the Imperium. This seems at first to be an impossible task, but the characters aren't just deadly in combat, they are smart.

From the start, Rath sets up believable and compelling characters that are easy to like. Not a small task since Imperial Assassins are a truly brutal bunch. He also weaves in many elements that might come into play later, but in such a way, that you don't notice them. There is a theater concept called Chekov's Gun, that states that if you show the audience a gun, it has to be used at some point in the play. Rath manages to hide his Chekov's Guns amongst the rich details of this book all without overloading you with details. A hard task many authors fail at, but Rath pulls off with aplomb.

I have read a lot of novels set in the 40k universe, ranging from very good to completely abysmal, and I can confidently say that Assassinorum. Kingmaker is up there with the best. Many fans recommend the famous Eisenhorn Trilogy as the best place for a completely new reader to start, and I don't disagree, but after finishing with Eisenhorn, I highly recommend Assassinorum: Kingmaker.

A lot of the books in 40k are understandable focused on war, with the setting originally being just a tabletop war game, and this can be a bit boring for those who are just getting into Warhammer. What both Eisenhorn and Assassinorum: Kingmaker do so well is skirt around most of the battle stuff and instead show you what sits behind all the warring, in the cultures, the worlds and everything else that happens in the setting before and on the side of the battles.

All in all, Assassinorum: Kingmaker is an exciting book that never gets dull or bogged down, is always on point and constantly managed to surprise me even though I've been a Warhammer fan since the late 1980's. It felt fresh and fun all throughout.

If you are a fan of 40k and you haven't given Assassinorum: Kingmaker a chance, you are doing yourself a disservice, it really is that good. I wish I could tell you more about it, but that would spoil it and it doesn't deserve that.

That's that and all that. Join me again next time and until then, have a great week!

 

Red Sparrow - again.

Back in June I talked about the (sort of) spy thriller Red Sparrow. I have now read the book and feel like doing a bit of a comparison.

To no one's surprise, the basic story is the same as the movie. There is a mole in the SVR, Dominika is trained to be a spy, lots of tradecraft, the CIA etc...

However there are lots of differences as well. Take Dominika's training for example. In the book she is fully trained at the SVR academy before she is sent to the sparrow school. The movie really exaggerates the sparrow element for obvious reasons, but it also cheapens Dominika's skills. There is also the fact that she has synesthesia, or the ability to see sound as color. This is why she was so good at dancing, and why she is a human lie detector. The book kind of wears off a bit, treating her condition as more or less aura reading which is a bit much but it is an interesting element, so I didn't mind.

In the movie, a lot of the action takes place in Budapest which is fine, but in the book Nate and Dominika duel in Helsinki which really amused me as I live there. The author, Jason Matthews really did a good job, and described many places accurately. However, I did get a good laugh when a couple of CIA agents are described as knowing the city like the back of their hands, having even mastered the metro... The Helsinki subway isn't like London, Paris or Moscow. The book was published in 2013 and our metro at the time looked like a fork. One long line and a short fork on one end. Not all that impressive to master that... But it was fun to see my hometown through the filter of a spy thriller. Dominika and Nate even eat at a restaurant that I have eaten at a dozen times, at least. In fact, I didn't even know the place still exists, so that was a fun bonus.

The book also deals with espionage within the US, with a highly placed mole, which the movie ignored completely. There are scenes taking place in Athens and Rome that are likewise ignored. I get that it would have ballooned the budget, and it's not like the movie had to have these elements but it would have elevated the movie a great deal.

In a surprising twist, I actually prefer the movie's ending to the one in the book. The novel has a more realistic ending, but I found the movie ending more satisfying.

All in all, the novel really paints a more complete picture of Dominika which makes some scenes in the movie make more sense. It is only natural that a book can go deeper into detail than a movie, but the movie really messed up in so many small ways that they could have fixed if they hadn't been so focused on doing other things instead. In the movie, Dominika has to fend off the lecherous advances of the Russian station chief in Helsinki. In the book, he is a scumbag but he does not dare hit on the niece of the Deputy Director. Things like that I wish the movie could have just handled better.

In conclusion, I really enjoyed Red Sparrow. Jason Matthews writes well and his long experience in the CIA really shows. He manages to create believable and tense surveillance scenarios without loosing the reader in tech-babble. If you like spy novels, read Red Sparrow, it is worth it.

 

The Jewel of Seven Stars

 

It's time to get literary since just last night I finished The Jewel of Seven Stars by Bram Stoker, who is of course most famous for his 1897 novel Dracula. The Jewel of Seven Stars, was written in 1903 with a revised edition published in 1912.

The version I found free and legal on Project Gutenberg is the 1912 edition, which apparently is missing a pointless chapter and has a happier ending than the 1903 version. Otherwise the editions are the same.

Mild Spoilers ahead.

In a nutshell the hero, Malcolm Ross is summoned by a young woman, Margaret, who he is sweet on as her father Abel Trelawney, a famous Egyptologist has been attacked by a mysterious assailant in the middle of the night. Mr. Trelawney is in a trance and has left very strange instructions for what to do in just such a case.

Other characters like the young Doctor Winchester are pulled in to the mystery as they try to understand what has happened while struggling with unseen forces. This is the first part of the book.

In the second part, Mr. Trelawney and his associate Eugene Corbeck explain how they found the tomb of the sorcerer queen Tera and how the whole sequence of events came to be.

In the third, the small group of main characters go to a small house in Cornwall to investigate whether Queen Tera's knowledge of mystic powers are truly real.

Mild Spoilers end.

The whole novel was a bit tough to read, as the language and grammar is very old school. A modern editor would probably have a fit trying to get the sentence structure to make sense. Quote; No one, not accustomed to packing, could have the slightest idea of the amount of the amount of work involved in such a task”. I did get used to it after a while, but it is a bit rough.

That said, part one is in my opinion very good. The mystery is interesting and is what I'd say the only part of the book that could be classified as horror. The story moved along at a good pace.

Part two is interesting but a bit slow. A lot of talking, exposition and flashbacks with nothing really happening. Still captivating enough, especially if you have an interest in Egyptology. Since Howard Carter, the man who found the tomb of Tutankhamen also discovered the tomb of Queen Hatshepsut in 1903, it is likely that Stoker was inspired by these events. I myself have a love for the subject matter, which helped me with part two of the book.

It is however in part three that the book falls apart. Once the group gets to the house in Cornwall, I had a devil of a time following the narrative. Again we get a lot of talking, arguing and explanations of things we already know. I also had a hard time with locations. Mr. Trelawney shows the group a cave under the house and I got the impression they want to hold a ceremony there, but then all of a sudden they hold the ceremony in a room in the house. The actual ending was anti-climactic and felt incredibly rushed, as if Stoker had half an hour to finish the story and simply ended it.

The Jewel of Seven Stars is a gothic novel with its supernatural elements coupled with romance and mystery. I liked it, and would recommend it to fans of such literature. I wouldn't necessarily recommend it to a casual reader just looking for something to read. It's good but not great.

That's that and all that. Join me again next time and until then, have a great week. Stay safe!

Dragonlance Chronicles

 

A couple of days ago, I finished the original Dragonlance Chronicles trilogy, and I figured I'd talk about it. This wasn't the first time I read the trilogy, but the first and only time I did, was about twenty years ago, so it was time.

Dragons of Autumn Twilight, Dragons of Winter Night and Dragons of Spring Dawning are by now iconic fantasy novels. Published in 1984-1985, they began as adventure modules for the new Dragonlance setting for Dungeons & Dragons. The modules were written by Tracy Hickman, and he wanted to expand on the game he was running in these modules by turning the game sessions into a series of novels, which TSR (the then publisher of D&D) reluctantly agreed to. Another writer was slated to write the novels but he fell through so Hickman and his assigned editor Margaret Weis decided to write the trilogy on their own.

Enough back story, let's crack on. Mild spoilers ahead.

The story follows a band of heroes which includes Tanis Half-Elven, Flint Fireforge, Tasslehoff Burrfoot, the brothers Raistlin and Caramon Majere and Sturm Brightblade as they return home after a long five years apart. But times have changed and evil now stalks the land as the minions of the cruel Dragon Highlords cause trouble for everyone. The meet, rescue and team up with two plains barbarians Goldmoon and Riverwind and set off on adventure. Later on, they are joined by Tika Waylan, Laurana and Gilthanas Kanan (brother and sister) and a couple of others. Together they seek to stop the Dragon Highlords from conquering the world for the evil Goddess Takhisis.

The cast is pretty big but it isn't that hard to follow. The names aren't that similar and since the entire group is rarely in one place at the same time, there is little risk of getting them mixed up.

The story is solid if not groundbreaking. The Chronicles follow an old arc also used in the original Star Wars trilogy, with the threatening setup followed by a dark middle and ultimately a costly but happy ending. Simple and functional.

The writing is clean and easy to digest, but it is in the world and the locations that the Chronicles really shine in my opinion. The world of Krynn is presented in a believable way and feels both natural and functional which contrasts nicely with the more outlandish places that the heroes visit. Making everything incredibly fantastic is an easy trap for fantasy designers fall into, and Hickman and Weis elegantly sidesteps this, making the world feel alive and if not real then at least believable.

There are a couple of nitpicks though. A description of the elven homelands explains that it took the elves several hundreds of years to sculpt but “what is that to people who measure their lives in centuries”... I'd say that is quite a thing then.

The second book starts with a brief recap of an entire adventure that took place between the books. This felt very odd as not only did it sound like a very cool adventure, but why structure your story in such a way? Why not include it? If it would have made the Chronicles too long, then change the story. Imagine if the Lord of the Rings had started as it does, but then had jumped to Rivendell and merely mentioned that the journey had been perilous and that the encounters with the Ringwraiths were scary and so on. It jarred me quite badly, but it is what it is.

The Dragonlance Chronicles is not great literature, and that is in many ways its strength. It's a simple and clean fantasy adventure story. One might call it naive, and maybe it is, at least compared to the above mentioned Lord of the Rings, but it is also easier to read and nowhere near as cumbersome. It knows what it is and it doesn't try to be anything beyond that, which I respect. In the world of role-playing game novels, it is a venerable old war horse and if that is your thing, you do yourself a disservice by not reading it. If you come looking for high art you are in the wrong place.

I liked it and I recommend it.

That will do for this time. Join me again next time and until then, have a great week and stay safe.

The Butcher of Lyons

So, it has been a while since I did a book review, but today it's time.

Last week I finished; Klaus Barbie: The Butcher of Lyons by Tom Bower.

Klaus Barbie (1913 – 1991) was a Hauptsturmführer (captain) in the SD, subsection IV, better know as the Gestapo. This probably tells you quite a lot already.

After a short intro, the book sketches out his childhood and how he came to join the SS. This is followed by his early service culminating in Barbie being posted to Lyons. This section is a hard read as the details of the interrogation techniques he used are pretty stomach churning. But it would have been a mistake to gloss over it too much, as it's important to be aware of what these people did.

This section also details the French Resistance groups and Barbie's intelligence work to find and break them.

As the war ends, the book goes through Barbie's struggles to evade the Allies and how he in 1946-47 starts to work for the US CIC, or Counter Intelligence Corps. As relations between the Soviet Union and the rest of the Allies rapidly fell apart, and paranoia over Stalin's plans for Europe explodes, Barbie found himself invaluable to the American effort to spy on and suppress German communist parties.

Finally when pressure from the French became too much, and the CIC could no longer convincingly lie to cover for Barbie, they spirited him away to South America through Italy.

Barbie sets himself up as a businessman and intelligence officer/adviser for right wing governments in South America, particularly Bolivia. Since Bolivia's founding in 1825 they have had 190 changes of government, ususally through coups, so Barbie had no shortage of work.
Finally, thanks to the untiring efforts of the Nazi hunters Beate and Serge Klarsfeld, Barbie was extradited to France to stand trial for all the people he tortured and sent to their deaths.

This is where the book ends, as it was published in 1984 before his sentencing to life in prison in 1987. The kindle version I read is a reissue, and it would have been nice to have an addendum of post '84 events, but that is why we have Wikipedia.

As history books go, this one was a very easy read. It never got bogged down but it never loses the important details. It also manages to keep a good sense of a neutral perspective, reporting but never editorializing. This is of course not an entirely easy thing to do with this subject matter.

Finally this book gives an interesting insight in the unwillingness the Allies had in actually running down and punishing Nazi criminals. A speech by Roosevelt and later Churchill made it an unavoidable issue, but officials on both sides of the Atlantic really didn't want to meddle in that. Sure, the big-wigs had to go, but beyond that, many were content with leaving things as they were. This attitude coupled with the communist fueled paranoia really explains why and how the US came to protect a man like Barbie.

If the subject matter interests you, I absolutely recommend this book, both for the quality of research but also for being well written.

That's that. Join me again next time for more Eccentric Spheres, and have yourself a great week!

Good doggy...

Late last night, I finished Cujo. You know, the novel written by Stephen King and published in 1981?

Okay, so it's been 38 years since publication, but that didn't bother me at all, after all, I lived through the 80's and remember it fairly well.

I'll try to avoid spoilers, but the basic premise is so well known by now that I'm assuming you know the central issue of the story is a dog with rabies. A St. Bernard in fact, and apparently one of almost world record size. The titular dog, Cujo, is mentioned to weigh 200 pounds (90kg) and the world record dog was 210 pounds (95kg).

The novel is set in King's fictional town of Castle Rock, in Maine during an unusually hot summer. There is a small cast of characters and a large part of the book concerns their interconnected lives. The rest of the book is about a couple of people trapped in a hot car with the dog trying to kill them.

I found that from the start, King weaves a very compelling narrative. Even though it's essentially just normal life, he makes it interesting without bogging you down in pointless detail. Everything has a meaning, even if it might take the entire book to understand it.

The characters are incredibly believable, with their hopes and fears realistically portrayed. Good or bad, you know there are people like this, even though you might not have met any. Likewise, the environment works.

The book is set in 1980, but that really doesn't matter that much. I really don't think it would have mattered all that much if the story was set today. Yeah, the whole trapped-in-a-car scenario would be different with mobile phones, but those run out of battery and not everyone keeps an adapter in their car.

So, what is my verdict? Cujo is a very enjoyable book. Before going into it, I knew as much as I mentioned above, but the book is something that has to be experienced. Even if I broke down the whole thing, you would still have to read it to really get it. I did find towards the end that there was a coincidence too many, but that's about the worst thing I can say about it.

Is it a horror novel though? Depends on your definition of horror. There is no murderous supernatural clown here, nor is there magic or vampires, but a 200 pound rabid dog hell-bent on ripping you to shreds is pretty damn scary. It's a more mundane and down to earth story compared to some of King's other works, but a very easy and good read.

If you haven't read it, and you're in the mood for something tense and miserable (in a good way), then read Cujo.

That's it for this time. Until next time, have a great week and stay away from rabid dogs!

History of the Gestapo

Last night I finished reading The Gestapo: A History of Horror by Jacques Delarue.

In short, this is the history of the Gestapo from before it's founding to the fall of the Third Reich.

It's important to point out that the author was a part of the French Resistance, so to him it wasn't just an academic question, but an actual part of his life. This affects the book in two ways.

First, a good portion of the book concerns the activities of the Gestapo in France, which is fine, but I would have liked an overview of it's activities in the other occupied countries as well. They are mentioned in passing, but nowhere near at the same level as France.

Second, it gets a bit preachy at times. Ideally a historical work should remain neutral at all times, and let the facts, good and bad speak for themselves. In my opinion, you don't need to state that the actions taken by the Nazi secret police were bad, but seeing that the author was directly affected by the Gestapo, I get it. And it doesn't happen all that much.

I liked this book. I have read several other books about the Third Reich and the S.S. and some have been a real slog to get through. This one is very easy, not just to read, but also to keep track of. The author repeats events and dates just enough to help you understand what happened when and how it affected other events. This makes it all easy to follow.

I also liked the way the book keeps up the bigger picture as this gives perspective. It's easy to think that the Nazi big wigs were a team, but in reality they were a loose confederation of warring chieftains, viciously fighting each other for prestige and power.

If you are interested in the dark chapter of human history that is Nazi Germany, then I would say it's essential to dive into Gestapo's history since it was one of the principal tools used to keep the regime in power. I guess there could be better books out there, but The Gestapo: A History of Horror is absolutely good enough. It doesn't go too deep, it is more of an overview, but this is essential or everything would get hopelessly bogged down.

I guess the take-away here is that I recommend this book.

Until next time, have a great week!

The Keep

In 1981, F. Paul Wilson published The Keep, a horror novel set in WWII Romania. The movie has been on my radar for quite some time, but I never really got around to watching it.

Then Bookbub had the book on sale for 0.99 cents, so I grabbed it. I wanted to read it before finally watching the movie, and so I did.

Romania, 1941 before the German invasion of Russia. A group of soldiers led by Captain Woermann arrives at The Keep, in fictional Dinu Pass. A greedy soldier intent on loot accidentally releases an old evil called Molasar, which starts to kill one soldier per night. The captain sends for help, which arrives in the shape of SS-Sturmbannführer Kaempffer and his einsatzkommandos. The officers knew each other form the first world war and their mutual antagonism is a relevant part of the plot. The killings continue and the Germans discover that Jewish professor Cuza is the closest thing to an expert of the keep there is. He is forcefully taken to the Keep by the SS and the Romanian Iron Guard together with his daughter Magda.

At the same in Portugal, a strange man named Glenn becomes disturbed, and grabbing his belongings, hastens to Romania.

I'm not going to explain more of the plot than this, to avoid spoilers.

Even though the it all sounds a bit cheesy, the book is actually pretty good. The pressure brought on by the killings which are clearly supernatural adds tension, as threatened soldiers are prone to lash out. I enjoyed it from start to finish, especially since Wilson writes good characters, but the film, well, that's another question entirely.

The movie, directed in 1983 by Michael Mann (Last of the Mohicans, Heat) is awful. It has three problems in my opinion.

The biggest reason for it's ghastliness isn't Mann's fault. His original cut was 210 minutes, which the studio refused outright. They had it cut down to 96 minutes, after which Mann disowned the movie altogether. The cuts really savage the plot. I knew what everything meant because I read the book, otherwise I would have been completely lost. Very little makes any sense in the film as it stands. It jumps around, it rushes through the plot so fast at times that what for example, should be a blossoming romance is boiled down to a weird surreal sex scene. Things like that.

The second problem is it's extremely 1980's style. Even though it's set in 1941, it has an electronic soundtrack by Tangerine Dream, and it sounds terrible. In another movie it would be fine, but in a WWII film it's awful. There are also several special effects and shots that are completely out of place but were popular in the 80's. It looks at time more like a music video for Kate Bush, than a horror movie. This is very much Mann's fault.

Finally there are the inevitable changes. Surprisingly, the film is mostly very faithful to the book, but the most glaring changes are really irritating. First, Magda is changed to Eva. Why? Magda is a perfectly functional name. Silly change. Secondly, a priest is added to the film. He replaces the innkeeper from the book, but there is also an innkeeper in the film. So why bother adding a priest that serves no purpose? Worst of all, Molasar is completely changed. There is a very good reason why he looks like a pretty stereotypical vampire in the book, but in the movie he is an odd Golem-Demon-Smoke-Monster. So incredibly dumb. So are the way in which he kills. In the novel, he kills in bloody, shockingly gruesome ways, but in the film, it's all a light show. Terrible...

I would like to actually see Mann's 210 minute cut, but it is lost in the mists of time. Because of this I can't go into all the things that are missing from the book. He may well have filmed them, but lost them on the cutting room floor.

End summary: do read the book, it's in my opinion worth it, but avoid the film at all costs.

That's it for this time. Until we meet again, have a great week!

Butchers of Berlin

It's been a while since I've reviewed any books, but today we're changing that.

Today I want to go over the novel Butchers of Berlin by Chris Petit (2016).

I haven't ready any of Mr. Petit's other works, but based on Butchers, he is one hell of a writer.

The book is set in Berlin in 1943, which means it's smack in the middle of World War II. Our “hero” is August Schlegel, a cop who works on financial crimes as a part of Kripo (short for Kriminalpolizei or criminal police). He none the less gets pulled in on a murder investigation that leads to some very dark places.

It should be pointed out that Butchers of Berlin (or BoB) is a fairly gruesome novel. Due to the setting and the theme, it needs to be nasty and I commend Mr. Petit for making it so, while not going overboard. Some readers might disagree, and if you're sensitive to blood, cruelty and such things, maybe give BoB a miss. At the same time, it's not too much. I found no part where the book revels in gore just to shock and be sensational, to the contrary, I'd say it actually pulls back a bit.

The mystery at the core of the book is convoluted and takes more than a few twists and turns, but as it should, it all gets wrapped up in the end.

I haven't read any others of Mr. Petit's works, but based on this I want to. He writes well, but with an interesting twist. I don't think there was a single back and forth dialog in the entire book. Instead it looks something like this:

A: “I think it's time for dinner.”

B agreed and added that he was hungry.

It threw me for a loop at first, and a lesser writer would probably have gotten lost, but Mr. Petit makes it work and at times it helps the text flow smoother. Once I got used to it, I really liked it as there was no useless comments anywhere in sight.

Overall BoB is a well researched book with a great story and good characters. It's worth noting that some of the people that show up actually existed for real. I won't spoil which ones, it's all explained in the appendix.

Bottom line: Butchers of Berlin is a great mystery/thriller set against the backdrop of war torn Berlin with all the misery, paranoia, corruption and horror one would expect to find there. If that's your thing, I highly recommend it.

That's it for me, join me again next Monday for more Eccentric Spheres. Until then, have a great week!

The Legend of Devil's Creek

Last night at 1.30 in the morning I finished The Legend of Devil's Creek by D.C. Alexander.

This is one of the most interesting murder mysteries I've read in a very long time. Not so much due to the actual murder mystery itself, but because of the philosophical examination of the nature of evil and what drives someone to murder.

We follow Riddley, a shy and introvert college kid and his new friends as they hike, party, fish and go to philosophy class. This in itself doesn't perhaps sound all that exciting but it's essential to the plot.

The rest of the book portraits some of the police officers who are struggling to find the killer, mainly Captain Marshall, a traumatized veteran.

It's difficult to explain why this book is so good without inadvertently spoiling anything, but the quality of the writing is top-notch. D.C. Alexander has a gift for letting you feel, not only the characters emotions, but also the atmosphere, all without rambling on and on. Maybe it doesn't sound like fun to read about a bunch of twenty-something-year-olds drinking and talking on a cold beach, but it was some of the best parts of the book.

Because all the talk of crappy childhoods, the philosophical discussions in class, the partying and the silly pranks they play on each other, helps you understand the killer as well as provides a strong sense of normalcy that makes the murders seem more real.

My biggest criticism of the book is Riddley. In the beginning of the book, his self-esteem is so incredibly bad that it's frustrating. He gets better but it takes time. Quite a lot of time. That said, it was never unrealistic. Annoying yes, but never unbelievable. Perhaps I shouldn't be lambasting the author about this. After all, it takes discipline to stay the course and not yield to the temptation of letting Riddley off the hook too quickly.

Anyway, I've been rambling on too long. I highly recommend this book. I loved it.

Finally, I'd like to wish you a Merry Christmas, or which ever equivalent you choose to celebrate. See you next week!

World War Cthulhu

Today I want to talk about a collection of short stories I just finished reading.

WorldWar Cthulhu contains 22 short stories all with their own illustrations by M. Wayne Miller. The stories all share two points, a war of some sorts and the Lovecraft Mythos.

Over all, it's a mixed bag. Naturally another reviewer might like stories that left me cold and dislike the ones that I loved, but I feel confident when I say this is a good book.

Settings wise, the stories range from the Trojan war to the future. If I recall correctly there were two sci-fi stories, neither of which I liked very much and two Trojan tales that were both pretty OK.

My favorites were White Feather by T. E. Grau set in the American revolution, The Boonieman by Edward M. Erdelac set in Vietnam and Cold War, Yellow Fever by Pete Rawlik set in the Cold War, more specifically the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Most stories were solid and well worth reading if you are a Lovecraft fan. Unfortunately the majority of tales revolved around the Deep Ones and the Mi-Go, and I would have liked to see more variation, but it's not so much what you do but how you do it.

Surprisingly, there weren't more stories set in WWII, and in a pleasant twist there was one tale concerning the IRA which you don't see much of in books like this.

I won't go through all the stories as that would be insane, so I'll close by saying this: if you are a Mythos fan, read this book. The over all quality is very high, and even the stories I didn't really like were fine. Not great but decent. So I do recommend this anthology.

That's all I have for you this time so until we see each other again, have a great week!

Zombie Fairy Tales

A couple of weeks ago, BookBub informed me that a book called Zombie Fairy Tales: TheComplete Collection was on sale.

My first reaction was: Really, it's zombie fairy tales now? But I also remembered how much I enjoyed both Pride, Prejudice & Zombies, as well as it's prequel Dawn of the Dreadfuls. So I decided that a dollar wasn't too much of gamble and I picked it up.

I can without hyperbole state that it is a fantastic book, really amazing. Kevin Richey has done an incredible job seamlessly weaving together all the different fairy tales into one open, shared world and then unleashing the zombies in the mix.

I'm by no means a stranger to zombie fiction, but I found things in this book that were new and interesting to me. What really caught my fancy though, was how so many of these over-familiar stories like Cinderella, Pinocchio, Red Riding Hood, Beauty and The Beast etc. are combined with characters like Bluebeard, The Headless Horseman and Countess Bathory, and it just works. Then when you add zombies and plague to the mix, all hell breaks loose.

When I say all hell, I truly mean it. This is the goriest book I've read in years. Even though it doesn't dwell too much on the grisly carnage, there's something gruesome on almost every page. If that's a problem for you, stay far away from Zombie Fairy Tales.

But to be fair, the gore is necessary. If Mr. Richey had left it out, the book would have been too dry and dull. Besides, the original versions of the classic fairy tales were brutal, sometimes in the extreme.

The way in which all these characters live (and die) in one shared world is wonderful. This means that as the book progresses, the story becomes more convoluted without ever becoming complicated. Each chapter is sort of stand alone, but most characters show up more frequently as the book continues, but never just for show. There's always a reason.

I really can't explain too much more without running into spoiler territory, but if any of what I just said sounds interesting, please read this book. You won't be sorry.

That's all he wrote for this time, so until we see each other again, have a great week!

BookBub

Last week I tripped over a link to BookBub. I'll tell you what it is in a minute.

Over the last few years I've read more and more books on my tablet. In the beginning it felt really weird, but once I got used to it, it was regular books that started to seem weird. I still really like paper books, and I do read them, but the practicality of the ebook has won me over.

What hasn't won me over is the price of most ebooks. As it stands, most ebooks are as expensive as their paperback cousins, and it's ridiculous. With paper books you have printing, materiel, transport, middlemen, labor, you name it. It all costs money. But with ebooks you have a server and a webmaster and that's pretty much it. You can store an entire library in a closet, so real estate isn't much of a problem. This should drive the price down, but this is rare.

Amazon, the biggest retailer of electronic books understands this, but unfortunately the publishers don't. Or rather they won't. When Amazon started selling ebooks they wanted the price to be low, after all you're only downloading a copy of a file but the major publishing houses balked. They demanded to get the same prices as paper books. Whether this was out of fear of the printed market falling or just plain old greed I couldn't tell you, but Amazon had no choice but to agree to their demands. This is why you're paying as much for a file as for a printed book.

Of course the writer deserves a fair share, and so does the editor, but the rest of the costs are minimal, so that's why I was really happy to find BookBub.

If you've ever been to Amazon you'll know how huge it is. Unless you're looking for a specific author it can be really difficult to find something for you. Especially if you're just looking for good bargains, and that's where BookBub comes in handy.

You simply log in to BookBub with your email and then specify which genres and authors you're interested in, and then they email you when those books are on sale. And the best sale in the world has to be a free book. Yupp, I have downloaded several books for free and it's completely legal. Because with the messed up prices most ebooks have it's hard for me to give new authors a chance, but with prices from free to 0.99 cents I'm more than happy to go for it.

There are other sites like BookBub, but since I haven't tried them I can't comment. But if you like to read on your electronic device of choice, give BookBub a chance, otherwise you are going to have to sift through Amazon's kindle store every day on your own.

Until next time, read a book you haven't read before and have a great week!